Some time back I was approached by a gentleman who is building his own scale airport. He wanted a resident airline to inhabit that airport. That airline is called Air Republica. And boy, does he not skimp on the detail.

He had an old livery that he drew up in 2002 using a wing design he’d penned as a youngster. He wanted to keep the wing, but modernise it. He also wanted me to keep the silver painted fuselage, but modernise the overall livery on top of it.

I know what you are thinking; “it’s a toy airline, so what?”
Well, it may not be a real, flying, airline. But this guy runs a very successful business and treated this like any real world project. This was no easy project. He threw in curve balls, spanners and wrenches into the project like any other client I have worked with.
If anything, this was good practice to keep my creative juices flowing!
He even went as far as to copyright all the work, once completed!

So, on to the project

First off, we needed a revamped logo. We started off on a completely stylised tangent. But gradually, the client wanted it to look more and more like the original, until… well, see for yourself. I think the logo is a good compromise between modernising the wing, but also keeps firm hold of its roots.

Once the logo was finalised, on to the livery.

Designing a livery for such a small scale (1:500) presented interesting challenges. I had to be mindful that not all the details would translate very well or would effectively become lost due to the small canvas.
Subtle detailing was off the cards altogether! Elements had to be bold, brash and obvious.

As it happens, I hit bullseye with the very first design! The client loved it. Aside from a few small tweaks to where the registry, flag, aircraft model number goes, the below illustration is more or less exactly as I first presented it. We also completed the cargo version of the livery at the same time. Yes, this semi-imaginary airline has cargo ops too!

After that, it was on to drawing up a “Paint plan” for a large multinational die-cast model maker so they know how to apply the artwork to 777-300ER and 772LRF models.

At the same time, I design the box art for the box the models would be delivered in:

I liked this project. The 146 is one of my favourite planes. I just like its proportions and style. Britain’s last independent hurrah in the commercial aviation world. Killed off by men in suits who were only interested in as much money in return for their time as possible.

Anyway… I was contacted by Meteor Aero Services to provide a simple livery, mainly white for their BAe146 which they would be outfitting in an executive configuration for business charters and the like.

The brief was simple:

“Keep it simple and clean. There needs to be room up front for ad-hoc decal titles. Oh, and make it smile.”

So Boeing announced the launch of the 787-10 with an order from BA and UA. So much for all the nay sayers that said neither airline would order from Boeing again after the troubles they had with the 787-8!

Something a lot of budding designers of aircraft liveries forget is the need to ensure their design is suitable for any size of aircraft with little or no modification.

It’s easy to make any livery look stunning and pleasing to the eye on a 737-700 or MD80 for example. But does it transfer to anything larger?

For example, Shaheen Air. They adopted this livery:

It’s smart and well balanced, visually stunning even and suits the 737-200 well. I also happen to know who designed it. They were a freelancer like myself.

The problem with that livery is simple. If you transfer it to a larger aircraft and you end up with a tail heavy design:

There is no secret to balancing a design. You just had to have a good eye and imagination.

When I designed the following livery – admittedly a virtual outfit, hence the name – for the 737-700, I kept the possibility of larger aircraft in mind. To illustrate this, I have drawn it up on the 737-800, 787-8 and 747-8I. The livery remains balanced.

I must admit that this livery is a little old, I originally designed in 2003.